Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Microsoft Clarifies TMG/Forefront Death Watch

As I'm sure you're aware, Microsoft recently announced the cancellation of Threat Management Gateway as well as Forefront Protection for Exchange & Sharepoint. This is disappointing news to many and I'm trying my best to avoid reading between the lines on this one.

That said, I found that on the fifth page of the comments the team posted a clarification post, which I'll quote here for reference:

Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform Team September 20th, 2012 2:32 PM

"We wanted to clarify some details around the discontinuation of Forefront TMG to help address many of the questions we’ve seen posted in the comments section.

First, it is important to note that while Forefront TMG is being discontinued, it will continue to be supported in mainstream support through April 14, 2015 and in extended support through April 14, 2020. When and how a customer transitions to a replacement solution will depend on how the customer is using TMG today. Customer use scenarios vary, but these general guidelines should help:

• For customers using TMG for caching, secure web gateway (forward proxy), and firewall, we recommend that, prior to April 14, 2020, customers examine the many vendor solutions available in market today that offer comparable features to the TMG product. Microsoft does not plan to transition this functionality to any other Microsoft products.

• For customers using TMG for reverse proxy, transitioning to Forefront UAG is an option. Most web publishing scenarios that are supported by TMG can be published by UAG, though specific functionality may not be identical. For customers who do not want to transition to Forefront UAG, customers should plan on transitioning to an alternative vendor solution prior to April 14, 2020.

• For customers using Forefront TMG Web Protection Services, we recommend that customers examine the many vendor solutions available in market today that offer comparable reputation services by Dec. 31, 2015. This product will no longer receive updates starting January 1, 2016.

We hope that these general guidelines provide additional clarity. Please continue to contact your Microsoft account teams or partner managers with any questions about your specific scenarios.